


Epilogue, to a life lived

by HapaxLegomenon



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bittersweet, M/M, Reunions, Slice of Life, Written pre-season 7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-17 09:47:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15458661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HapaxLegomenon/pseuds/HapaxLegomenon
Summary: Shiro's life with Adam is over, but maybe they can turn the page and start something new.





	Epilogue, to a life lived

Shiro doesn’t want to get out of the car.

He stares through the window, gripping the door handle as he looks up at the low-rise building. Yellow brick, the colour of sandstone. Probably fashionable, at some time or another, but now it’s old and ugly and the closest place to _home_ that Earth has to offer. Or it was, once.

“He might have moved.”

Keith sighs. “Maybe,” he says.

“I don’t want to intrude.”

“It’s just a visit.”

“He won’t want to see me.”

“ _Shiro,”_ Keith’s voice cracks, and Shiro winces like it’s a physical thing. He feels like holding his breath, like preparing for a blow, like if he twitches his fingers his arm will light and burn even though that arm is gone, now, his arm is gone and his hair is white and his face is scarred and they said goodbye and --

“We should just go,” Shiro says, half-desperate, half-sincere, and Keith sighs again, then reaches across the centre console of their borrowed car to squeeze Shiro’s arm. He squeezes again, after a pause, and Shiro finally drags his eyes away from the building _(third floor, second window to the right)_.

“If that’s what you want,” Keith says, eyes serious, “then we’ll go.” No qualifications, no conditions, no agenda. Shiro remembers when Keith was a wild, dangerous child, someone with too much potential and not enough guidance, and Shiro sees the man he’s grown up to be. Brave, and dependable, and loyal. The kind of person Shiro always knew he could be. The kind of person to look up to.

For as long as he can remember, it's been difficult for Shiro to be anything less than perfect. To be vulnerable. Especially in front of Keith, who needed a steady, strong presence to learn from. He needed Shiro to be strong and controlled and confident, so Shiro was. Shiro breathes deep, then exhales.

“Will you wait?” he asks, raw and open.

Keith’s mouth twitches. “Always.”

Keith never breaks a promise. It’s one of many things that he didn’t learn from Shiro.

Their apartment building has a locked lobby, technically, but Shiro remembers breaking in, a late evening when they’d forgotten their keys and decided to hack the lock, tapping at the keypad and giggling in hushed, drunken whispers as they leaned against each other for balance. He remembers finding the master keycode, barely hidden behind a firewall, and after the rush of nostalgia, he remembers the code. Sure enough, the door beeps at him, the same cheery, cheesy tune as three years ago, and it slides open.

Shiro takes the stairs. Third floor. Second apartment to the right. He reaches for the doorknob automatically, before stopping. He knocks on the door with his left hand instead. For a brief, wild moment, he prays that nobody’s home.

Then the door opens, and --

“Can I help you?” Adam asks, in that tone that Shiro remembers, the polite, talking-to-strangers voice.

Adam doesn’t recognize him. And god, why would he? Shiro’s been through hell and it shows. He doesn't look like the Shiro who walked away. And as far as Adam knows, as far as anyone outside of the team and the Garrison knows, Shiro died years ago on an icy, desolate moon. His tongue feels glued to the roof of his mouth, but he unsticks it enough to manage, “Adam…”.

Shiro sees the exact moment that Adam realizes. His shoulders droop, his eyes and mouth opening in surprise. “Oh, Takashi,” he says, and the sound of it shivers over Shiro’s skin. “What -- I -- Come in. Um, if you want…?”

He sounds so unsure. Shiro never could stand hearing Adam doubting himself, and the still-instinctive need to _help_ lets Shiro relax some of the whipcord tension he’s been holding onto since Lance asked, on their way back to Earth, who he was most excited to see again. Despite everything, Shiro manages a smile. “I’d like that,” he says, and the man he once thought he’d marry steps back to invite him into the home they shared.

It looks different. Shiro tries not to let it bother him, but. It’s just another reminder of everything that’s changed. Three years, he reminds himself. A long time. The couch is still the same, though -- the same ugly, hard orange couch that they bought together because it was the only thing they could afford, and hey, at least that way they wouldn’t care if it got dirty when they snuck Keith off campus and he fell asleep with his boots on. Shiro toes his shoes off at the door and settles on the uncomfortable cushions.

Adam says, “I’ll make tea,” and goes through the process with jerky motions. He looks as awkward as Shiro feels.

“I hope it’s not the stuff I left,” Shiro jokes feebly, breaking the silence.

Adam stills, for just a second, but says, “I kind of got a taste for it,” and he hands Shiro a cup as he sits with his own. Shiro’s eyebrows raise in surprise. Adam was always more of a coffee man. There had been a lot of playful teasing about the relative merits of hot leaf water versus hot bean juice, before -- before. Shiro takes a fortifying sip, swallowing down a pang when it’s exactly the way he likes it.

“So,” he says, holding his mug carefully between metal fingers. “I’m sure you have questions.” Shiro’s chest feels like it's constricting, and he reminds himself to breathe. Adam will want to know. The arm, the scar, the hair…

Adam’s eyes are on him, sharp and clever. Shiro’s always had his walls and Adam’s always been able to see right past them, and even with the rusty distance of years, he manages to find the right answer. “We don’t need to talk about it right now.”

Before he can think to stop himself, Shiro blurts, “You were right, I did die in space,” and regrets it immediately, even before Adam flinches.

“I didn't want to be right about that,” he replies, voice raw.

“You’re always right.”

Adam laughs, sort of. “Am I?” It’s bitter, and confused, and none of the things that Shiro ever wanted to hear in his voice. A double wave of guilt washes through him; for leaving, in the first place, and for returning. And that given a choice, he’d do it all again.

The place on the wall where their graduation photo used to hang isn’t empty. There’s a different frame now. Shiro doesn’t want to look at it, ashamedly afraid of what might be there. “I want,” Shiro starts, then stops, swallows. He doesn’t have the right to _want_ anything, not here. Not when he’s the one who left.

Leaving is a bad habit.

Adam waits.

When he realizes Shiro isn’t going to speak, he says, “I do want to know what happened. But if you can’t talk about it… just, are you okay, Takashi?”

“Yes,” Shiro answers, sitting up straight. Then; “No. I’m… I don’t know. I didn’t crash on Kerberos.” It feels important. It’s not, really, not in the face of everything else, but Shiro needs Adam to know. They were supposed to be -- well, everything, but co-pilots, too. It’s important that Adam knows he’s still a good pilot.

Adam shoves his fingers back through his hair, an old tell that Shiro recognizes as stress. “I know. God, really? I knew it had to be some kind of cover-up, give me that much credit. It was never your flying that I was worried about.” There’s an acerbic sharpness to the words that makes Shiro flinch. To his horror, the ceramic mug cracks in his grip, spilling lukewarm tea onto his thigh. He jumps up, swearing under his breath and hot with embarrassment.

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Adam says, already up and reaching for a dishcloth. “Not the first time one of use has spilled on this ugly thing. Here.” He takes the broken pieces and dumps them unceremoniously into the sink. Shiro works the fingers of his metal hand. This arm is still new, and it’s calibrated differently than the Galra one. Pidge assures him that it will be better in the long run, less strain on his body, but the slight change in functionality, on top of the months of incorporeality, has left Shiro off-kilter. He thought that he’d started to get the hang of it in the last few weeks of their long transit to Earth. Apparently not.

Adam watches him opening and closing his fingers, and blurts out, “How --” before he clamps his mouth shut and hands Shiro a towel.

“Still getting used to it,” Shiro offers in return, and Adam’s expression shatters. “This one’s new. It’s better. I, um, had another one. But it... broke. Pidge -- Katie Holt made this one.”

Adam frowns. “Matt’s sister?”

Shiro nods, letting a small, fond smile creep onto his face. “Yeah. She’s a genius. And even more stubborn than Commander Holt. You’d like her.”

“I saw Commander Holt on the news a few months ago,” Adam says, and Shiro blinks, because oh yeah. He’d forgotten, somehow, that the Earth Commander Holt returned to was the same Earth where Shiro had left Adam. They felt like separate worlds. “But I didn’t see you. I thought -- it’s been so long. And you only took eight months worth of meds with you.”

Oh. _Oh._ “A lot of things happened up there,” Shiro said. A lot of terrible, horrifying things, some of the worst moments he would ever live, and some of the best. Forming Voltron for the first time. Watching his team grow. Waking up in a body that didn’t hurt and wouldn’t rot away from around him. “I’m not sick anymore.”

Adam’s eyes go wide. “You --”

This time, Shiro’s grin is easier, spiked with an eagerness to share this triumph with the one person who knows exactly what it means. “I’ll tell you all about it, someday, if you want. But it’s gone, Adam. It’s _gone.”_

Adam was the one who was there when Shiro first started feeling _tired_ , the bone-deep weariness that never went away, when his cheeks started to hollow and his hands started to shake, and Adam was the one who finally convinced him to see a doctor. Adam was there when the results came back and Shiro hyperventilated into a pillow for forty-five minutes, panicking over a biological clock that someone moved forward without telling him. And Adam was there… until he wasn’t. And Shiro can’t blame him, really, never could, because they both knew that Shiro going into deep space would kill him, and Shiro was the only one who thought that trade-off was acceptable.

Adam exhales a shaky sigh and drops his head, hands hooking loosely at the back of his neck. “I thought -- I _knew_ you were dead,” he breathes, “I wanted to believe the official story because I couldn’t -- the thought of you dying in a crash was hard but… wasting away in space...”

If this was _before,_ Shiro would reach out and wrap his arm around Adam’s shoulders, and they’d lean together and his hair would tickle Shiro’s cheek, soft and smelling like drugstore shampoo. They’ve done it so many times. It used to be as natural as breathing. But that arm is gone, and so is Shiro’s right to comfort him like that.

But still. He reaches out, left hand, and sets it on Adam’s shoulder.

Adam shudders, then abruptly sits up straight. “I didn’t wait,” he says like a challenge. “I told you I wouldn’t wait and I didn’t.”

“I didn’t expect you to,” Shiro answers. “I made my decision. I still stand by it.”

“Of course you do. Stubborn idiot,” Adam mutters. There's a beat of silence. “I dated Jean-Denis.”

Shiro blinks. The know-it-all engineer from their class? Shiro remembers him the way Lance used to be, before he grew up a little, and with none of the sweetness and charm to back up his blustering swagger. Kind of obnoxious and with much too high an opinion of himself. Shiro always found him… grating. “Oh,” he says. “How, um, was that?”

Without any pause, Adam’s face twists up and he mutters a reactive, “ugh.” There’s a pause, then they both laugh.

“I thought you had higher standards than that,” Shiro teases gently.

“Shut up, I was rebounding.” Then he looks up at the wall clock and makes a face. “I have to go to work.”

Shiro’s stomach goes cold, and he swallows around a spike of panic. They said goodbye, once, so it should be easier to do now, but Shiro balks at the thought that this could be it, maybe Adam won’t want to see him ever again, why would he, so maybe this time it really is the end --

“Do you have a new cell phone? We could get drinks. If you want.”

Shiro breathes again. “I’d like that,” he says, and Adam finally smiles at him. God, he’s gorgeous. The most beautiful smile Shiro’s ever seen, even now. “I loved you,” Shiro blurts before his brain catches up with his mouth.

Adam picks up his keys. “I loved you, too, Takashi,” he says softly. “So much.” He pauses. “Do you have a place to stay?”

“Keith,” Shiro replies, and Adam nods in understanding. They walk down the stairs together, not touching, but together. It aches.

Shiro holds the door for Adam, and Adam smiles at him, and Shiro almost implodes from loss and affection and a cautious optimism for the future. He holds out his hand, the metal one, to say goodbye. Adam gives him a funny look, then takes it.

He pulls Shiro into a loose hug. “I’ll talk to you soon,” Adam murmurs in his ear, then pulls away.

Keith is still there, waiting in the car across the street. He looks up when Shiro slides into the passenger seat. “How'd it go?” he asks, voice soft.

Adam walks away down the sidewalk, and Shiro watches him go. “I think we're going to be friends,” he answers.

This time, it doesn’t hurt.

**Author's Note:**

> QUEER SHIRO!!!!!
> 
> I can't wait until season 7. 
> 
> ([Twitter](https://twitter.com/paxlegomenon))


End file.
